Children of The Nebulous

Chapter Five: Five Months Ago...Home Ground.

                             Chapter Five: Five months ago.... Home Ground:

Definition of Home Ground: The remains of the Mother Ship, Nebulous, and the surrounding area within The Thorns.

It made Blade a little mad, but Anthony had been right. A party inside Home Ground to get everyone together had been a great idea. It gave them all a chance to have showers, change their clothing, to eat something half decent and to swap stories.

A few of the younger children had banded together and were eager to tell everyone how they'd found a small escape pod, which had been uncovered by the last Grit Storm. It was only about a kilometre, South Side, outside the Thorns, in tact and still packed with much needed provisions. The sudden collapse and destruction of a much larger life capsule a few months before, which had been entangled in The Thorns since the beginning and had given everyone a safe passage through, had been disastrous, and meant they could no longer bring in larger finds.

Sitting outside around a campfire to keep warm from the evening chill, everyone told of their ideas of how larger things could be brought in, to catapulting things across, to digging a tunnel but they all knew nothing would work; so as the night drew in, they retold their stories of how they'd managed to get back through the capsule just moments before The Thorns had crushed it like an egg.

Kendon said he'd never seen a real egg. Mikko tried to describe one, but then asked, "If the capsule was made to withstand the power generated from a supernova, how come The Thorns were able to crush it so easily and why wait so long to do it?"

Blade told them, their faces sharp and eager to listen, that the taltalium, which the capsule was mostly made from, was created for space flight, exceptionally light and designed to actually change it's structure, so the faster it travelled, the stronger it would become but after crashing the capsule could have fractured and over time The Thorns would have weakened it. "And it didn't help," he added, "that over the years we've all but striped it bare, there really wasn't much holding it together and anyway, the concentrated power generated by such an event as a supernova, is so immense that just a few grains, would be so heavy it could crush a small planet, I doubt any capsule could ever withstand such a force."

Suzi still looked worried. She felt it strange that a thorn hedge could destroy the capsule so easily. 'It just suddenly crumbled like tissue paper," she said. "we were lucky to get out with our lives! Where did The Thorns come from? How could it do this? And why now?" No one answered. Blade noticed Anthony's uneasiness, his eyes suddenly looking away from the group and made a mental note to talk to him later.

Meanwhile Keyon was eager to talk about the time he'd been Thorned. He couldn't believe the universe contained such pain and it was a miracle Anthony had ever found an antidote. Everyone clapped, whistled and cheered to which Anthony, blushing, flourished a theatrical hand and bowed.

This led to Blade telling them he was going out to the City and while he was away no one was to leave the boundaries of Home Ground; no one, under any circumstance was to go out through The Thorns without permission or without an antidote. He'd made sure there would be enough provisions for them all and promised everyone would have at least one hot meal a day. But even with this promise and their fear of dying a horrible death by being Thorned, or being caught by the Manboti, didn't stop virtually everyone asking to go with him. Blade had shaken his head and told them he would be going alone; then added in a hushed voice, as though it was a secret, he hoped to have some good news on his return but in the meantime, Commander Anthony Hesster  would be in charge to which they all cheered again, as they all knew Anthony would let them get away with almost anything.